This Is Our Last Dance
by EmAndFandems
Summary: What if they hadn't averted the War? Canon-divergent angst, canon-typical relationship ambiguity.
1. But In Hope I Breathe

It should have worked.

A stroke of genius, really, distinguishing between Great and Ineffable. Who could find fault with that logic?

Evidently Beelzebub and Gabriel could. _Well, barring divine intervention, we will continue azzzzz we have been inzzztructed_ and _Yes, that sounds reasonable, we'll expect you in position at the proper time._ With or without the help of the Adversary, Destroyer of Kings, et cetera, the War would go on.

Crowley kicks at the ground and says a word Brother Francis once told Warlock not to use. "That— they— the!" he yells, once the bosses have faded back into the tarmac and sky respectively. He kicks at the ground again, on the off chance it might help. It doesn't.

Aziraphale places a hand on Crowley's shoulder. "Yes," he says absently, not because he wasn't listening, but because it is getting rather hard to remain present while the Call is gaining strength. The angels are being summoned. He ought to take his place in the Heavenly army. Aziraphale's eyes are glowing with the effort to stay on Earth and maintain a form that will not obliterate the nearby humans and/or their sanity.

"I can't believe this, I _cannot_ believe it," Crowley is saying, between mingled curses and blessings. "_So _bloody close."

"Are you alright, Mr. Aziraphale?" This from Madame Tracy, who thinks she has a fairly good sense of his character after having it squished up against hers mentally, and who also thinks the look on his face is… just short of frightening, to be honest. She wouldn't blame Mr. Shadwell for thinking him a demon if this were their first look at him; there is definitely something _wrong_ about the way his body is fitting him at the moment.

"No," Anathema says dully. "None of us will be, in a moment."

Newt stares at her, panicked. The wheels of his mind are turning at about the same rate as Dick Turpin's. "But surely that was it? They've had their whole... confrontation and they've gone, wasn't that the end of it?"

Crowley laughs. The sound of it is bitterer than Job at his lowest and darker than the inside of Jonah's whale. Newt flinches away from him.

Shadwell staggers forward in defense of his fellow Witchfinder. He points at Crowley with a shaking hand and bellows, "D'ye ken what this is, laddie? Watch yerself!"

Crowley rolls his eyes and Shadwell finds himself, abruptly, in a field. He has no way of knowing it, but a few miles south of him is the lovely Hollandstoun. Crowley had his best guess at what could generously be called Shadwell's accent: the island of North Ronaldsay is known for seaweed-eating sheep, birdwatching, and being as far north as Britain gets. There is an airport not far from where Shadwell stands scratching his head; if the customs officials would accept his witchfinder ID card (wonderful calligraphy, quite old, 9 pence per witch) in place of a passport, he could be back in Lower Tadfield in under six hours.

The problem is that the world will not contain any Tadfield, Lower or otherwise, in six hours.

Adam frowns at Crowley. "That wasn't very nice."

"Thanks," Crowley says, with half a glance at Aziraphale, who _tsk_s softly. "Right, then. I'd say it's been nice to know the lot of you, but I don't, and it hasn't been."

"Actually," Wensleydale begins, but Aziraphale holds up a hand and he falls silent. _Everything_ falls silent. The world is quieter than it has been since before the creation of jet planes, or possibly life.

"You," Aziraphale says, and his voice doesn't exactly match up with the way his mouth moves, like his body is a video fallen out of sync. "Child."

"M'name's Adam," says the Adversary, Destroyer of Kings, Angel of the Bottomless Pit, Great Beast that is called Dragon, Prince of this World, Father of Lies, Spawn of Satan and Lord of Darkness, eleven years old.

"He's coming," Crowley tells him with an exaggerated grimace that does not quite cover the stabbing pain behind his eyes. "Your father."

Brian disagrees. "But Mr. Young's got to be at work by now."

Pepper smacks him in the arm for the comforting familiarity of it. "Not _that_ father, dummy. His _other_ father. Haven't you been listening at all?"

Brian shrugs. Wensleydale sighs. Pepper despairs. Adam is not paying attention. He is concentrating very hard somewhere else. The earth rumbles. The sky darkens. There is a peal of thunder, although that was purely for dramatic effect, and was likely only thrown in at the last minute.

For several minutes, Anathema has been frantically flipping through The Book to see if she can find any forgotten prophecy, anything that hasn't been used yet, anything that could come in handy. Newt tugs on her arm.

"Hang on," she mutters, still searching, "I think perhaps 2286…?"

"Anathema," says Newt, grey-faced, "we _really_ ought to go."

"But it's not over yet!" Anathema insists.

"Oh my," says Madame Tracy, who in the absence of Shadwell has shuffled closer to the Them in what might be a vague attempt at maternal instincts. "No, I rather think it might be. Look."

She points. The ground is beginning to split open in front of Adam. A horrible clawed hand starts to make an appearance. Adam shouts something wordless and ancient, incomprehensible to the six humans still present, and the hand retracts, the crack seals, the ground settles.

"What, dear?" Madame Tracy asks, for all the world as though asking him to repeat himself without the mumbling, there's a good boy, have a sweet. (You know the ones that your grandmother always seems to have in her purse, or her pocket, the ones that haven't been sold in twenty years. Crowley was rather proud of them.)

"He said," says Aziraphale, who looks, now, as though his edges are blurring, "to go away."

"Tha's right." Adam nods, pleased. "Wouldn't be any fun if _he_ came up and ruined everything, just as we'd all gotten everyone to go home 'n be jolly again. S'that it, d'you reckon?"

He turns to Crowley. Were he still wearing his sunglasses, they would be smoldering; his eyes, on full display, are giving off small sparks. His teeth are gritted. He is finding it difficult to hold back on the hissing.

"Don't be sssstupid," he snaps. "He'ssss only gone to rally the resssst of them. Oh, he'ssss angry, it'ssss all in here—" motioning to his chest— "they're all jusssst furiousssss really. Ooh, I don't fanccccy being here in ten minutessss."

"_Now_ can we leave?"

Anathema gives Newt a capital-L _Look, _the likes of which Agnus Nutter might have given Thou-Shalt-Not-Commit-Adultery Pulsifer. "What do you think the end of the world means? The end of the Tadfield airbase? There isn't anywhere to _go_."

"She's right," says Aziraphale apologetically. "Sorry. This whole business of using Earth as a battlefield… I did try, you know, but I was, er, outranked. And She won't answer my calls."

"Your c— Did you try _phoning up _the Almighty?" Crowley demands, turning to the angel. "Thought you would jussst ring Her up and _have a word _about the planssss for Armageddon, isss that it?"

"Don't make fun of me," says Aziraphale wretchedly, "what else was I supposed to try? I notice _your_ efforts haven't paid off very well either."

Crowley huffs. If you were to squint at him now, the effect produced would be something like one of those holographic jigsaw puzzles you sometimes get for your birthday, although you would probably try to return this one to the shop. Turn your head one way, see the angry man; turn the other way, see a dark blur that is only vaguely person-shaped, possibly bursting into flames. The tarmac beneath his feet is softening with the heat he is giving off.

"What do we do now?" Pepper asks, quiet and tired, and it is now easy to see that the human who defeated the very personification of War is after all only a child who is out with her friends somewhere they shouldn't be. "Adam?"

Because Adam is always the one who comes up with the best ideas. Adam's never let them down. He thought up the British Inquisition, and their health food diet that one afternoon, and what happened with the Johnsonites at the old folks' party at the village hall. Adam is the leader. Adam will know what to do. Adam _orlways_ knows.

Except he doesn't. Adam is biting his lip and staring at the ground, in the manner of a small boy who is trying not to cry, and who wants very badly to be told that everything will be alright.

It will not be. The most that could be said is that it would be very-much-not-alright for only a short amount of time, and then you wouldn't mind anymore, because there would be no you to mind.

"Adam?" echoes Brian, and then Wensleydale. "Adam?"

Adam screws his hands into fists. "Stop it," he says. "Stop waitin' for me to do ev'rything. S'not fair putting it all on me. I din't ask for this."

He didn't. In fairness, nobody in their right mind would ask for this. There is often a small and nasty cult somewhere, usually in the States, filled with the sort of people who will tell you that they would like very much to be in Adam's place right now, but that is the case only because they are _not_ in his place. Very shortly, none of them will be anyplace at all.

Contrary to what certain poets would have you believe, the world _does_ end with a bang. The air itself tears along the seams of the fabric of reality, accompanied by the smell of burning ozone and, inexplicably, pears. If you were to ask, inhabitants of the Earth who are inclined toward poetic description would call the experience _sublime, _reminiscent of key works of art of the Romantic period: a poignant reminder of one's mortality and insignificance in the face of a bigger picture. Those who are not would probably settle for screaming, if they had time.

The atmosphere boils away. The seas turn to blood and then evaporate. In an instant, all terrestrial life ceases to exist. The end of the world is underway.

"Do you smell pears?" says Aziraphale.

_**A/N: work title from Queen's "Under Pressure," chapter title from their "All Dead, All Dead." PLEASE leave a comment to let me know what you thought!**_


	2. As It All Began

The world as a physical plane seems to have ceased existing. There is still a faint impression of what once was, but it is more of a six-thousand-year-old memory than anything substantial. It is something like the feeling of trying to hold on to a fragment of your dream after waking, only you can't write it down because you can't find a pen. In fact you never will be able to find any pens, because both the pen and you have blinked out of the universe.

Instead, where the Earth was, there is now a largish blob of molten material being overrun by beings ethereal and occult. Even the blob can only be vaguely estimated to be there at all: it is more of a metaphysical blob. A battlefield of historical or possibly future significance. The fourth dimension, like the first three, is behaving pretty oddly right now— or maybe later, or else eons ago— it is hard to pin down a sense of chronological order.

Standing on the remains of an airbase are the only two beings still wearing approximately human forms. One of them bears a flaming sword. The other is weaponless and baring teeth that could be said to be growing pointier by the second, if seconds were still a meaningful measure of anything.

"Crowley?" Aziraphale's voice is the only sound in the world. It echoes against the emptiness. Technically, it should be impossible to make any noise at all, considering the lack of an atmosphere for sound to travel through, but he manages it anyhow.

Crowley does not look away from the armies manifesting in visible space, but he says, "Yeah."

Aziraphale pauses. By the time he opens his mouth again, it is almost possible to make out the faces of the first few angels landing, which would be quite a feat, considering that they barely have any to speak of. "Good luck."

It is at this point that Aziraphale makes a series of realizations in rapid succession.

Realization the first: There is no side for him here.

He will not be forgiven by Heaven, will find no place for him in their ranks, no matter how fiercely the Call is still thrumming through the fibers of his core. He might call it a miracle that he has not been declared Fallen; Aziraphale has no doubt (ironic as that may be) that Gabriel and Michael and the rest would rather see him burn than take him into the fold again.

Hell, of course, will not take him in. He is still an angel, albeit a badly-behaved and oft-reprimanded one. Aziraphale had no part in the Rebellion and has shown no signs of reaching out to anyone Down There besides Crowley. Which brings him to—

Realization the second: Crowley is not safe either.

Obviously Heaven will be trying to destroy him. He is The Enemy, after all. Supposed to be Aziraphale's greatest opponent, locked in a millennia-spanning feud, a cycle of wiles and thwarting that all culminates here and now. No, Heaven will not be kind to Crowley. There will be no judgment of his merits and the little things that make him more than just a demon. There will be only Judgment, the sort of divine wrath that inevitably ends with smiting. It is Judgment Day, Aziraphale supposes blankly, if the state of temporal discontinuity they are in can be called a day.

Aziraphale remembers a conversation he and Crowley had after Warlock's birthday party, regarding ineffable mercy and certain ancient cities. Crowley cannot be allowed to fall into the hands of Sandalphon.

But Hell… might Hell not be persuaded to accept him again? Surely, reasons Aziraphale, his infernal counterparts would be more inclined to look well upon a spot of rebelliousness. They're _demons_. They cannot possibly object to the idea of Crowley acting a little… outside the lines, now and then.

Realization the third, conclusion: Aziraphale must fight for Hell.

There is no scenario where Heaven wins this War and either of them are allowed to live. But if Hell wins, at least Crowley will have a chance. The phrase "a snowball's chance in hell" comes to mind, but even a slim chance is better than none. And if Aziraphale's defection makes it seem like Crowley has successfully tempted an angel, so much the better.

He's just decided this, white-knuckled hands gripping the flaming sword a little tighter, when he turns to tell Crowley and sees the blank space where the demon should be. Aziraphale spins around, desperate. Somehow, without his noticing, the airbase has been filled with the forces of both Sides. He cannot find Crowley.

Pseudo-corporeal forms are taking up too much of the not-space around him. If you need to picture it, think of it as a crowded music hall, wherein everyone is both there and not there, something along the lines of a hologram with more solidity. Or if the impossibility of that contradiction is too much, adjust the piece playing in the music hall so that the audience is listening to Elgar's "Pomp and Circumstance," which provides the same out-of-body experience as being halfway in the spiritual plane.

In short, although Aziraphale is unusual in his persistence in maintaining a totally physical presence, he has to push past other almost-presences as he tries to get a better view of what is about to become a battlefield that will make Normandy look like, well, a beach.

The other angels do not stop him. Most of them do not recognize him; they see another angel and move to get out of his way, like holding the door for someone at work. _Ah yes, I'll let you at the armies of Hell, then, and you'll have that report on my desk by Monday, thank you, always a pleasure._ Those who do recognize Aziraphale and know a little more about him also move away, for the most part. The look on his face is enough to convince them that someone else can handle this particular rogue element, there are plenty of demons to take down without worrying about one of your own, nothing to see here. Heaven is not in England, but a great deal of its inhabitants have picked up on some very English thought patterns.

The world is comprised of a primordial chaos, a swirling universal soup. The noises of war accompany the actions as though coming from a very long distance away, or from underwater: muffled, and Aziraphale cannot tell if it is actually like that or if panic is overriding his senses. He looks around frantically.

There! Crowley, being pulled away by _someone;_ it could be an angel or a demon from this vantage point. It doesn't matter. Whoever it is, Aziraphale cannot let anyone have him. He starts to give chase.

If there is anything more irritating than discovering that all the telephone lines in the city are jammed, it can only be getting cut off by someone stepping in front of you in a queue. Aziraphale, obviously, is not in a queue, but someone steps in front of him anyway. A demon brandishes some sort of spear at him and growls.

"Oh, no, you see—" Aziraphale starts to say, but he cannot risk any angels hearing him, so he hesitates before he can say _I'm on your side_ and the demon does not wait; it lunges toward him and, with a flash of instinct that thousands of years of dithering have not managed to suppress, Aziraphale smites it. A single swipe of a flaming sword and there is nothing in front of him but a wisp of smoke that, if it were to wind up in your mouth and if you were still in possession of taste buds, would taste something like a carton of milk that had been left in the sun for a month.

He stares in mute horror at the space formerly occupied by an occult force, hoping it wasn't anyone Crowley knew. A hand lands on Aziraphale's shoulder and he spins to swing again.

He cannot stop in time. The congratulatory words Zadkiel was forming die on his lips as he dies on Aziraphale's sword.  
_**A/N: chapter title from Queen's "White Queen." Let me know what you thought!**_


	3. Son of Heaven

Aziraphale is screaming.

Though he cannot see Aziraphale, Crowley hears him, and he knows that sound. He's heard it tear from his own throat, eons ago, before the Earth cooled.

It is the sound an angel makes when the connection to divinity is severed. It is the sound of despair, and loneliness, and failure.

An angel has one purpose. Angels, by their very nature, are incapable of multitasking, and are said to change names for each holy mission. An angel _is_ its purpose. Losing its relationship with the light means a disconnect from that purpose. It should leave the angel (if the term can still apply) lost, without a reason for being, without a goal for the first time in its existence.

Aziraphale knows all of this, but pays it no mind. He is preoccupied with the need to save Crowley.

Zadkiel dissolves into a light brilliant enough to blind, if any beings around were actually relying on photosensitive eyes. Aziraphale would blink but for the fact that his eyes are shining just as brightly. He draws in a ragged breath.

"Well," he says. "I suppose that settles it."

The angels around him have scattered. The demons before him are staring. Aziraphale glowers and glows. The sword he wields is flickering with heavenly flame, but it looks dim beside him. His corporeal form begins to surrender to the strain of containing his essence: something insubstantial, somewhere between steam and smoke, curls from his shoulders.

Classical painters have pictured angels as having haloes of light, or as being sheathed in perfect golden clouds. The light being given off is the same infrablack the M25 was an hour or two ago. The clouds wrapping themselves around Aziraphale's form would not have looked out of place above the Ark.

Aziraphale, semi-Fallen Principality, advances across the somewhat-there battlefield. He is gaining on whomever has Crowley. He does not need to use the sword again on his way there: one look at this dark angel is enough to convince Heavenly forces to do nothing more than mutter about reporting him to a superior, and Hell's are busy with more immediate threats than an old bookseller wearing his own personal thunderstorm.

When Crowley finally catches sight of Aziraphale, he experiences a feeling like his stomach flipping, although he is not sure he still has one of those. But for the fact that his arms are being held behind him, he would reach for Aziraphale. He strains against his captor, with about as much success as a preschooler filing taxes.

"Aziraphale!" Crowley shouts, and his voice should be lost among the sounds of clashing weaponry and inhuman screechings, but none of these sounds should be possible anyway, so what can it signify that Aziraphale hears him?

As soon as Aziraphale is within striking distance, he slices through the being holding Crowley. Only vaguely does he realize it was an angel after all. It doesn't seem to matter very much anymore. Crowley stumbles with his release and stretches shaking fingers toward Aziraphale's smoke-darkened wings. At least, he hopes it is smoke.

"What are you doing?" Crowley chokes out.

Aziraphale's smile makes a tremulous attempt at appearing. "Hopefully, the right thing."

The word _hopefully_ has been claimed to be among the most frequently-misused words of the English language. If you would like to be technical about it, _hopefully_ means "in a hopeful manner," as in, _Aziraphale looked hopefully at Crowley as the world ended around them, because he was an optimist._ Colloquially, however, _hopefully_ has come to mean "it is to be hoped that," as in, _Hopefully the end of the world will be only a temporary sort of thing and we can get back to our usual state of affairs soon_. Language being such a tricky thing since Babel, the secondary meaning has overtaken the first in popular usage, and so nobody could fault Aziraphale for partaking in this particular instance of linguistic drift.

Crowley stares. His sunglasses have been missing in action ever since he stepped out of the flaming Bentley an Apocalypse ago, so Aziraphale can see his entire expression. "You just smote an angel."

"Er, yes," Aziraphale admits. "I did. Two, actually, although—"

He cuts himself off at the horrified look Crowley is giving him. Aziraphale makes a face. "Oh, don't."

"You can't—! Why would you—? How—? You've—!" There are quite a few false starts before Crowley manages to finish a sentence. "You can't smite angels."

"Funny," says Aziraphale tightly, "I rather thought I just had."

Crowley sputters and throws his hands up. "You know damn well what I mean, Aziraphale, you _can't smite angels_!"

Aziraphale purses his lips. The War is still going on around them, in theory, but it seems to be giving them a wide berth for the moment. Neither of them notices. "Well, I have. And I will, if it comes to it. Which I guess it must."

"What?" Crowley grabs onto Aziraphale's arm as he moves to rejoin the fighting. "No."

"You can't stop me," Aziraphale snaps.

"Never could," agrees Crowley. "That's the point. Not my point, right now. Someone's point. Probably."

Aziraphale sighs. "Then what is yours, because frankly, I'm beginning to wonder if you have one at all, and—"

"Don't interrupt," says Crowley. Hypocrisy is one of his favorite sins, when the occasion calls for it. "You just— _you cannot smite angels,_ Aziraphale, or…"

There is something about Aziraphale's eyes at the moment. If he were in a more fully human shape, he might be crying; as it is, there is just a strange glint to their glow, a soft sheen that only carries the suggestion of wetness. "Or?"

Crowley makes a sound like a drowning man. "Don't make me say it," and he only narrowly manages to resist tacking on "angel" at the end from habit. He is afraid to use the word; he doesn't know what he would do if he were told it can no longer apply.

"I have to do this," says Aziraphale, though his hands and voice are trembling. "I don't expect you to understand."

"And what's that supposed to mean?" It would be absurd to feel hurt at a comment from The Enemy in the middle of The Great War which you have spent all of eternity, until today, bringing about. Or so Crowley tells himself.

"It means I'll smite as many angels as I like, thank you!" But if it was meant to be a joke, it lands as well as a plane with no wheels. Aziraphale winces and looks away.

"But you'll Fall!" Crowley's voice is a wrecked, wretched thing.

Aziraphale's is worse. "I think I already have."  
_**A/N: Chapter title from Queen's "My Fairy King." Please leave a comment!**_


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